APART from all the wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power, harness racing remains a sport and the action on the island’s best known track, Portmarnock Raceway, was fiercely competitive.
As the season opened in late April, it looked like it would be Cloghran-based Alan Wallace’s year as in the opening weeks he fired off winner after winner, doing particularly well with the ‘Trotteur Francais’ horses.
The French-breds now dominate our racecards, a strange parallel with the way that young French-breds horses have encroached upon the traditional National Hunt breeders in this country.
The popular Wallace did enjoy a great season. However, that other north county Dublin powerbase, the Meadowbranch Stud got off to a sluggish start and there were the usual rumours about viruses and ‘horses just not right’.
Whatever the cause, around the time of the country’s first classic, the Barney Joyce Memorial, the regally-bred inmates of the Ballyboughal yard started to shake loose.
With an incredible run of results in the latter half of the season, retained driver John Richardson regained the drivers’ title, while the official handler in the camp, Willie Flanagan, took the trainers’ equivalent.
Other early season highlights included the country’s best known lady driver Brenda Hudson showing she has lost none of her dash with several authoritative wins with her own Scoops Team and also with Dunne and Russell’s Rol d’Avignere. Neither beast is straightforward and an educated eye can see what Brenda has achieved.
Three meetings were held at the magnificent Dundalk venue. The directors of Le Trot are on record as saying that the Louth stadium compares well with Vincennes in Paris - high praise indeed!
An interesting innovation at the first Dundalk meeting was a team of locals representing Ireland against a team of visiting French drivers. The Irish team won although there were many more drivers on the Irish team than the French one. Perhaps for 2017, six against six would be more interesting!
The Irish Field carried the snippet that between the home team and the visitors, the drivers had partnered 7,000 lifetime winners. No amateur sport this!
MUSSELBURGH
The Irish fared badly at the Cheltenham of harness racing (Musselburgh in June). The Dougans of Cappagh, Co Tyrone salvaged some pride for the visiting contingent when the mare Coalford Silk ran second in the feature, the famous Musselburgh Pace of £7,000. Britain’s Horse of the Year Sportstrick was the winner with Alan Haythornthwaite in the bike.
Durham-based raider Craig Nuttall and his own Massoud took the season’s specalised race for piebalds and skewbalds, the Painted Mile. The Mannings of Limerick, long-time participants at Portmarnock won the lower grade division with Get Rocking.
MIRACULOUS
The Joyce weekend is an interesting preamble to the Delaney weekend a month later. The Joyce contest for three-year-olds is over a mile, while the VDM (Vincent Delaney Memorial) is another lap of the track (i.e. a mile and a half). As befits a true champion, all distances, underfoot conditions, and his position in the race come alike to Miraculous.
Derbyshire-based trainer Sally Teebon and sporting owner Arnie Flower will have no shortage of euros for the holidays as the son of Arts Conquest took both the July and August features for second season pacers.
The Delaney weekend has developed into the highlight of the season in Ireland. Drivers, pundits, breeders and simply good old fashioned trotting fans from the UK, Australia and the US converge upon the track. Derek Delaney has the knack for publicity and I am sure the hotels, guest houses and pubs of Malahide and Swords are not complaining.
The 2016 renewal saw the two-year-old fillies race go to an actual American owner (Bill Donovan who shares IB Coyote with the Murphys of Baltimore, the brothers who train her). The colts division went to the north of England, namely John Howard’s Tyrion Hanover.
Tyrion Hanover, as the name implies is a product of the Hanover Shoe Farms of Pennsylvania, ‘the most famous name in harness racing’, as their advertising proclaims. Senior Hanover executive Murray Brown was present and the ‘bold’ Delaney has added the famous nursery to his list of sponsors for 2017.
Dundalk belongs to Martin Loughran, or so it seems. The diminutive reinsman ran up a five-timer at the track on September 17th and then a quartet of winners on October 1st. It would be nice to see the Belmont Stables more at Portmarnock next season as they must surely be competitive.
JR IN WALES
‘JR’ enjoyed a better Tregaron than he had at Musselburgh as he drove three winners over the two-day meeting. None of the 140 entries at the idyllic Ceredigion venue had any answer to the handicap certainty Evenwood Son Of A Gun (Rocker Laidler), who took the Welsh Classic even though his driver didn’t need to go for the stick.
The Northern Ireland Standardbred Association ran 10 meetings at Annaghmore Co Armagh.
Martin Loughran was leading driver at the perfectly cambered oval and Joe Sheridan’s Springhill Biscuit, who went round the track with the regularity of a toy train, was leading horse.
WORLD RECORD
The season closed at Portmarnock with remarkable scenes on October 30th as Alan Richardson (grandson of the track’s original official time keeper, the late Barney Richardson) gained a first world record for this country as the strapping French trotter, Vichy De Moem recorded 4m 05.7, a new world mark for two miles on a half mile track.
Even though actual track racing ceased in Ireland at Halloween there has been plenty of activity since.
In November around six of the leading Irish drivers drove in a challenge match at l’Hippodrome Argentan in Normandy, albeit none troubling the judge.
Also in November, Sean Kane of the Naul, represented his country at Vincennes, Paris in an international race. Sean’s horse, the wagering favourite, ran well for a long time but faded when he saw daylight.
An IHRA delegation has visited France recently, selecting horses which will turn three on New Year’s Day.
The latest tranche of horses are the youngest French-breds to come in under the ‘Le Trot’ scheme and the advance publicity predicts that, due to the high uptake by Irish owners, these animals will race for a sum in excess of €30,000.
SADDLE RACING
The West Cork region recently opened its traditional saddle racing run on public roads from St Stephen’s Day to the spring of the following year. The tremendous spectacle tends to use a different pool of horses from the track proper.
A good few flat and jumps jockeys took their first steps on a standardbred, including Norman Williamson and Wayne Lordan.
The 2017 season is set to open late in April, with actual date to follow.
2016 IHRA Selected
Statistics
LEADING DRIVER
1. John Richardson 33 wins
2. Patrick Kane jnr 26 wins
3. Alan Richardson 19 wins
LEADING TRAINER
1. Willie Flanagan 38 wins
2. Billy Roche 21 wins
3. Alan Wallace 19 wins
Leading Driver Trotteur Francais only (points basis)
1. Sean Kane